


The Glass Cage

by ShippersList



Series: Whumptober 2018 [18]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, Kidnapped Tony Stark, Steve makes an appearance, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 23:45:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShippersList/pseuds/ShippersList
Summary: Tony doesn’t know how long he’s been imprisoned when someone finallyseeshim.Whumptober prompt: Hostage





	The Glass Cage

Inside the glass, it was easy to lose all sense of time. The walls surrounded him in a smooth, cold curve with no corners or seams he could detect. It was just him, an oddly shaped pedestal he was standing on, and a pile of white glitter.

It hadn’t always been his home.

See, a long, long time ago he’d been a normal boy and a normal young man, interested in pretty people, alcohol, and engineering. Father concentrated on the things he loved—money and success—leaving him to his own devices. He’d been more than happy to do what he loved (in more ways than one) because even though Father and he didn’t always see eye to eye, their grudging respect for each other’s intelligence and genius guaranteed them peace.

That had changed after Father had died.

 

* * *

 

He didn’t know what happened. All he could remember was that he went to bed after partying long and hard, and then woke up in…here, wherever _here_ was, wearing a red and gold armor, and frozen in place. His world had been shrunken into a glass-contained sphere and his life as he knew it was gone.

At times, his prison moved. Sometimes it was just a small shift, other times it resembled a violent shaking, like whoever had a hold on of his prison wanted to make him dizzy. As time slowly crawled by, he learned things through the distorted glass. He learned that he was usually placed on an even, deep brown surface with a menacing presence looming behind him. Because of his inability to move, he couldn’t turn his head to look, but after some time (Hours? Years?) the presence eventually moved into his field of vision. The bald head and cold, cold eyes peering at him made shivers run down his back and, with a terrible wave of nausea, he _remembered._

His name was Tony Stark.

The bald man with cold eyes was Obadiah Stane, Father’s trusted advisor and Tony’s godfather.

His small world inside the glass went white but he couldn’t tell if it was because Stane had shaken it or because of his own blind, impotent rage. Obadiah Stane, the man Tony had loved like a father, had betrayed him and imprisoned him in a glass sphere.

There and then, he swore he’d kill Stane when he got out of his prison.

Not if. _When._

 

* * *

 

Thing was, Tony had no idea how to get out.

He suspected there was magic involved. There was no way Stane could’ve engineered a glass prison like this on his own—Tony was quite sure it was beyond even his own abilities—which meant Stane had somehow managed to bully a Sorcerer to help him out. Tony wondered what they’d gotten out of it or if Stane had simply killed them after the deed was done.

And how was Tony supposed to get that sort of help while being imprisoned in the glass globe?

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take him long to figure out that Stane was keeping him in Father’s store. Or, well, now that Father was dead, it belonged to Tony but seeing as Tony was _gone_ , Stane had apparently taken it as his own.

During Father’s time, the store—simply called The Workshop—had been a place filled with odd knickknacks, experiments, partially gutted machinery, and anything else that had struck Father’s fancy. Before his…imprisonment, Tony had been in the process of storing odd things of his own in the back room. He had no idea how the place looked like now that Stane was in charge.

However, he knew it was open for business because every now and then, he saw shapes move outside his glass walls, going back and forth. In the beginning, he’d tried getting their attention but so far, it had proven futile: he couldn’t shout or move, which meant he had no means of alerting anyone.

That was, until _that man_ walked in.

 

* * *

 

Tony had no idea what made him special. Of course, the glass distorted everything so it was difficult to say what he even looked like, apart from being big and having light brown hair. But there was _something_ about him, something that called out for Tony and almost compelled his eyes to follow him as much as he could.

He seemed to spend a long time in the store, going back and forth, always ending up in Tony’s limited field of vision and Tony drank him in, distorted shape or not. Finally, he stopped right in front of the desk and looked at Tony. Almost frantically, Tony willed himself to move, to wave at the man, to _force_ him to see.

Something must ’ve happened because the next thing Tony knew, the man jumped back and then Tony’s world went white.

”—I’m sure of it!” he heard a bewildered voice say.

”Trust me, young man, it’s a snow globe and they don’t move,” Stane’s sneering tone cut through the white as Stane shook his prison again, this time almost violently.

Tony didn’t see or hear much after that.

 

* * *

 

After some time, after all the white glittering flakes had settled down and Tony’s world no longer spun, Stane lowered his head and leaned close. ”I don’t know what you did, but you can be sure you’ll never have the chance to do it again,” he growled.

Then he picked the globe in his hand and tossed it into the desk drawer. The globe spun and collided with something metallic, stopping sideways so that Tony was left staring at the bottom of the drawer.

”Enjoy the rest of your life,” Stane hissed and slammed the drawer shut.

 

* * *

 

As it turned out, figuring out the passage of time was even harder when you were sealed in permanent darkness, surrounded by tools, papers, and dust.

Tony wondered who the man had been and where he’d come from.

He wondered why he’d looked at Tony and why Tony had finally been able to move.

And he wondered if he’ll ever see him again.

**Author's Note:**

> Before you ask: YES THERE WILL BE MOAR BUT I DON'T KNOW WHEN.


End file.
